strange and random happenstance

Frenchman's Creek by Daphne Du Maurier
Published by: Virago Press
Publication Date: 1941
Format: Paperback, 260 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Dona St. Columb has tired of court. What she did with Rockingham shames her. It wasn't an infidelity against her husband Harry, it was a stupid prank that scared an old lady. A prank that has made her rethink her life, fleeing with her two children to Cornwall and Navron. Perhaps reconnecting with nature and leaving the din of London behind will help her to find a new Dona, one she can like. She hasn't been back to her husband's estate of Navron since they were first married; aside from the painting of herself hanging in the master bedroom it is quite different. There's only one servant, the almost impudent but ultimately amusing William, who seems to have run the household according to his whims. Soon Dona starts to suspect William of having another master other than her husband. There are artifacts left in her room that hint at another occupant while she was roistering in London.

But that partying Dona is gone, replaced by one reveling in the trill of a bird call and the smell of a flower. Therefore the Cornish society trying to thrust themselves on her is very unwelcome. Lord Godolphin and his ilk whinging on about French pirates are of no interest to her. Especially when she has formed a bond with the very pirate they hunt. The Frenchman is William's true master and is the one who has been sleeping in Dona's bed while she was away. She stumbled upon his ship, La Mouette, hidden in a creek near Navron. She could have given them up, told the law the secret base of the pirates, instead she joins the crew. With William as her conspirator every moment she can spare is spent with the Frenchman. They fish, they talk, he draws birds and Dona. But soon he must take again to the high seas and Dona wants to accompany him. Will his latest heist bring the law down on him or will he and Dona sail off into the sunset?

Frenchman's Creek was one of a very few books by Daphne Du Maurier that was available stateside when I was growing up, and yet it never caught my interest. I think again it's down to the misapplied moniker of "Romance Author" that Du Maurier was forever burdened with. A problem that isn't just with Du Maurier's unwelcome title but with me. For years I've often dismissed a book because it was labelled a romance. At least by this time in my life I'm willing to not let a book's genre classification sway me. Yet of all Du Maurier's books I've read this is the most romantic, but it's romantic in a way similar to The Princess Bride. There's just so much more than the romance that to brand it as such does the book a disservice. Though, playing devil's advocate, in the Frenchman, Jean-Benoit Aubéry, Du Maurier has created perhaps the ideal romantic hero. He is a classic, a paragon of the romantic ideal. He has poetry in his soul and the desire to capture nature on paper. Who wouldn't want to run away with him?

Even if years ago I could have brought myself to look past the "romance" label of the book I think the period aspect of it would have tripped me up. Frenchman's Creek is set during The Restoration, a time in England where the return of the monarchy and Charles II to the throne spurred a cultural and artistic revolution; as well as a lot of debauchery and excess. I studied this in two different history classes in college, as well as reading a plethora of plays from this time period in my theatre classes, I did mention artistic revolution didn't I? This was heavily in the theatre arena. At this point I hadn't actually hit saturation, that was to come with Charles II: The Power and the Passion. I had REALLY been looking forward to this miniseries airing and at about hour three I was flagging... in fact at about three and a half hours I reached a point where my love of Rufus Sewell couldn't compete with my boredom. So this Restoration revulsion that took place in me made me avoid Frenchman's Creek for too long because it is so fresh and so entertaining that it goes beyond the period trappings to be a timeless tale.

If I were to describe this book to someone who had a slight grasp of Du Maurier's canon I'd say Frenchman's Creek is the opposite of Jamaica Inn. Jamaica Inn is all about a good girl thrown in amongst scoundrels who are evil and bad ship-wreckers, whereas Frenchman's Creek is about a bad girl thrown in amongst pirates who do a world of good for her and are really not that bad a group of fellows. The genius of Du Maurier is that she can write two completely opposite stories and yet make you fall completely in love with both of them. In Jamaica Inn you were praying for Mary to be saved by the kindly gentry, yet here, here the gentry are fools who are to be laughed at and mocked and you are with Dona all the way as she schemes to steal from them with her Frenchman. What's more is that if you think on Dona she's an interesting character. Over the course of the book she turns away from her husband and her children and yet you are rooting her on. You sympathize enough with her that you WANT her to become a pirate. You are complicit in her crimes and you love every dangerous heart-stopping moment. Leave the children behind, take to the high seas!

And it's that desire to leave your life behind that clues you into the deeper meaning of Frenchman's Creek. Just below the surface of all Du Maurier's books you always see her. Even if she didn't openly acknowledge it she used her books as therapy. In Rebecca she dealt with the duality of a wife, who she was meant to be versus who she really was. Here it's the masculine versus the feminine self. She always viewed her creative impulses as masculine, and therefore Dona constantly referring to her adventurous side as masculine, as a cabin boy, makes sense in relation to Du Maurier. This desire to go out into the world, to please yourself, to seek adventure, to do, was in Du Maurier's mind a male impulse. Whereas the homemaker, the mother, that was the feminine self. In the atrocious TV Movie Daphne, you get the barest glimpse into her acting on her male instincts with Gertrude Lawrence. But, like Dona in the end, Du Maurier chose hearth and home, going back to her family. She may have tapped into her male side from time to time, but it was the female side that won out. But more importantly, it's the way she has dramatized this and her other struggles that have left us with such an impressive body of work. Here's to the writer with issues!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Charles II, Cornwall, Daphne, Daphne Du Maurier, Dona St. Columb, Du Maurier December Deux, Frenchman's Creek, Jamaica Inn, Mary Yellan, Navron, Pirates, Rebecca, Restoration, Rufus Sewell, Therapy

Frenchman's Creek by Daphne Du Maurier
Published by: Virago Press
Publication Date: 1941
Format: Paperback, 260 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Dona St. Columb has tired of court. What she did with Rockingham shames her. It wasn't an infidelity against her husband Harry, it was a stupid prank that scared an old lady. A prank that has made her rethink her life, fleeing with her two children to Cornwall and Navron. Perhaps reconnecting with nature and leaving the din of London behind will help her to find a new Dona, one she can like. She hasn't been back to her husband's estate of Navron since they were first married; aside from the painting of herself hanging in the master bedroom it is quite different. There's only one servant, the almost impudent but ultimately amusing William, who seems to have run the household according to his whims. Soon Dona starts to suspect William of having another master other than her husband. There are artifacts left in her room that hint at another occupant while she was roistering in London.

But that partying Dona is gone, replaced by one reveling in the trill of a bird call and the smell of a flower. Therefore the Cornish society trying to thrust themselves on her is very unwelcome. Lord Godolphin and his ilk whinging on about French pirates are of no interest to her. Especially when she has formed a bond with the very pirate they hunt. The Frenchman is William's true master and is the one who has been sleeping in Dona's bed while she was away. She stumbled upon his ship, La Mouette, hidden in a creek near Navron. She could have given them up, told the law the secret base of the pirates, instead she joins the crew. With William as her conspirator every moment she can spare is spent with the Frenchman. They fish, they talk, he draws birds and Dona. But soon he must take again to the high seas and Dona wants to accompany him. Will his latest heist bring the law down on him or will he and Dona sail off into the sunset?

Frenchman's Creek was one of a very few books by Daphne Du Maurier that was available stateside when I was growing up, and yet it never caught my interest. I think again it's down to the misapplied moniker of "Romance Author" that Du Maurier was forever burdened with. A problem that isn't just with Du Maurier's unwelcome title but with me. For years I've often dismissed a book because it was labelled a romance. At least by this time in my life I'm willing to not let a book's genre classification sway me. Yet of all Du Maurier's books I've read this is the most romantic, but it's romantic in a way similar to The Princess Bride. There's just so much more than the romance that to brand it as such does the book a disservice. Though, playing devil's advocate, in the Frenchman, Jean-Benoit Aubéry, Du Maurier has created perhaps the ideal romantic hero. He is a classic, a paragon of the romantic ideal. He has poetry in his soul and the desire to capture nature on paper. Who wouldn't want to run away with him?

Even if years ago I could have brought myself to look past the "romance" label of the book I think the period aspect of it would have tripped me up. Frenchman's Creek is set during The Restoration, a time in England where the return of the monarchy and Charles II to the throne spurred a cultural and artistic revolution; as well as a lot of debauchery and excess. I studied this in two different history classes in college, as well as reading a plethora of plays from this time period in my theatre classes, I did mention artistic revolution didn't I? This was heavily in the theatre arena. At this point I hadn't actually hit saturation, that was to come with Charles II: The Power and the Passion. I had REALLY been looking forward to this miniseries airing and at about hour three I was flagging... in fact at about three and a half hours I reached a point where my love of Rufus Sewell couldn't compete with my boredom. So this Restoration revulsion that took place in me made me avoid Frenchman's Creek for too long because it is so fresh and so entertaining that it goes beyond the period trappings to be a timeless tale.

If I were to describe this book to someone who had a slight grasp of Du Maurier's canon I'd say Frenchman's Creek is the opposite of Jamaica Inn. Jamaica Inn is all about a good girl thrown in amongst scoundrels who are evil and bad ship-wreckers, whereas Frenchman's Creek is about a bad girl thrown in amongst pirates who do a world of good for her and are really not that bad a group of fellows. The genius of Du Maurier is that she can write two completely opposite stories and yet make you fall completely in love with both of them. In Jamaica Inn you were praying for Mary to be saved by the kindly gentry, yet here, here the gentry are fools who are to be laughed at and mocked and you are with Dona all the way as she schemes to steal from them with her Frenchman. What's more is that if you think on Dona she's an interesting character. Over the course of the book she turns away from her husband and her children and yet you are rooting her on. You sympathize enough with her that you WANT her to become a pirate. You are complicit in her crimes and you love every dangerous heart-stopping moment. Leave the children behind, take to the high seas!

And it's that desire to leave your life behind that clues you into the deeper meaning of Frenchman's Creek. Just below the surface of all Du Maurier's books you always see her. Even if she didn't openly acknowledge it she used her books as therapy. In Rebecca she dealt with the duality of a wife, who she was meant to be versus who she really was. Here it's the masculine versus the feminine self. She always viewed her creative impulses as masculine, and therefore Dona constantly referring to her adventurous side as masculine, as a cabin boy, makes sense in relation to Du Maurier. This desire to go out into the world, to please yourself, to seek adventure, to do, was in Du Maurier's mind a male impulse. Whereas the homemaker, the mother, that was the feminine self. In the atrocious TV Movie Daphne, you get the barest glimpse into her acting on her male instincts with Gertrude Lawrence. But, like Dona in the end, Du Maurier chose hearth and home, going back to her family. She may have tapped into her male side from time to time, but it was the female side that won out. But more importantly, it's the way she has dramatized this and her other struggles that have left us with such an impressive body of work. Here's to the writer with issues!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Charles II, Cornwall, Daphne, Daphne Du Maurier, Dona St. Columb, Du Maurier December Deux, Frenchman's Creek, Jamaica Inn, Mary Yellan, Navron, Pirates, Rebecca, Restoration, Rufus Sewell, Therapy

Jamaica Inn
Based on the book by Daphne Du Maurier
Starring: Jessica Brown Findlay, Matthew McNulty, Sean Harris, Joanne Whalley, Ben Daniels, Shirley Henderson, and Andrew Scarboroug
Release Date: 2014
Rating: ★
To Buy

Mary Yellan's mother has died suddenly and she is forced to go live with her Aunt at Jamaica Inn because she doesn't want to take the offered hand of her childhood sweetheart Ned. Life at the inn is brutish and hard, filled with rough men and dangerous living. Mary has every reason to hate smugglers, as they killed her father, but soon she is one of them, part of a network hidden in plain sight throughout Cornwall. Jamaica Inn is a den of thieves and yet, despite her better judgment, she is falling for one of them, the younger brother of her uncle Joss, Jem Merlyn. The only place she knows safety away from the brutes and horse thieves is at the home of the local vicar, Francis Davey, where he and his sister Hannah offer Mary hope that her uncle will be caught and her and her Aunt Patience can forge a new life together. But no one is as they seem and everyone has some dark secret that haunts their dreams.

Seriously, this miniseries is not my fault. When I said I really wanted Jamaica Inn made into a miniseries after I first read it I didn't mean this! Let's go wreck a ship in broad daylight said no smuggler ever! Daphne Du Maurier is probably rolling in her grave right about now, but I'm sure after the Charles Laughton version she has no expectations at all and is used to disappointment. There is just so much wrong going on I was tempted on re-watching this painful miniseries to just do a Mystery Science Theater 3000 type review, but even that would have been too much effort and after a certain point there are so many major gaffe's that my brain shut down and I just tried to lie back and think of England while occasionally bemoaning the unlikelihood that anyone could get that much mud on their dress ever. Seriously. Was Mary rolling in the pig sty?

What is really grating is that this version obviously tried to keep the overall plot in tact to some degree but that it kept making little changes for no reason that kept adding up and resulted in changing everything. Now, I understand that this is an "adaptation" and that purity of the story is changed for a new medium, but seriously, why randomly make Mary have this long backstory with her father being killed by smuggler's but then have the twist that he was a smuggler!?! What does this add? Mary's mother hiding her illness from her daughter... it takes away Mary caring for her mother and showing what a strong independent young woman she is. In fact a lot of the changes chip away at Mary's independence. Instead of her not caring about love and wanting to return home to have her own farm, enter Ned, her love that was left behind that wanted to make a good wife of her. Ugh.

Why you're at it give Aunt Patience more of a backbone, make Joss less of a physically imposing giant of a man, add some new characters for no reason, change Harry the peddler from a creep and a rapist to a nice doddering smuggler. Oh, and why not take all suspense away and have Mary learn about the smuggling at Jamaica Inn in two seconds flat and have her helping out five minutes later! Then throw Jem in every scene you can, make Davey's housekeeper Hannah into his psycho sister, and on and on and on. Strip away everything little by little and what do you have? Three hours of my life I want back... or, by this point, six!

But nothing can ever beat the bad casting and dialect! The casting of Sean Harris as Joss is a joke. You need someone tall, imposing, like Clive Russell is at 6'6". But that is nothing to Sean Harris's mush mouth. I swear, I don't think he's actually saying real words. There's even a good chance he can't speak given the evidence of this miniseries. He is the worse perpetrator, but not the only one by a long shot! All the mumbling and grumbling of the dialogue led to a fair few complaints to the BBC back in April when this first aired, as in thousands of people called to complain. What the dialogue reminds me of most is that scene in My Fair Lady when Henry Higgins is filling Eliza Doolittle's mouth full of marbles and telling her to speak and enunciate and she can't. Everyone in this miniseries must have had a mouth full of marbles, it's the only explanation. The worst result of this is that the scene where Joss bares his soul and tells Mary that he is a wrecker, instead of coming across as riveting and horrific and sad all at the same time, it comes across as a mumbling drunk in front of a fire like a drunken uncle at the holidays you'd ignore. This direction and acting wouldn't inspire the horror in Mary, it would just be shrugged off as just another rant.

Finally, Mary Yellan herself cannot be exempted from the train wreck, or should I say shipwreck (oh naughty) that this miniseries is. She's supposed to carry the narrative on her shoulders and instead she spends all her time moaning and looking like she's constipated or drugged or both. Perhaps she's on drugs for her constipation? This role is yet another step in the downward trajectory that is the career path of Jessica Brown Finlay. Let's see where she went wrong. Firstly she's on like the most popular television series ever and she quits. Strike one, you don't leave Downton Abbey. Then she goes on to "star" in the cheesy television adaptation of the Kate Mosse book Labyrinth which was abominably boring and didn't even show up in the US till two years after it premiered in England to lackluster reviews. Next she stared as the fair damsel in the box office flop Winter's Tale, which didn't even make back one fifth of what it cost to make it and got an astonishingly low ratings on Rotten Tomatoes. I didn't know a movie could get only 13%! Oh, even better, top critics gave in only 10%! And then, oh joy of joys, came Jamaica Inn! Here's a hint. If you're going to leave a big show get something bankable as your followup, like Lily James and Cinderella. It's Disney! Oh, and she didn't have her character killed off so she can come back to Downton Abbey whenever she wants!

But underneath all that mud. Seriously, what's with all the mud!?! This adaptation got a few things right. Mainly they hired Matthew McNulty. A regular face for fans of Bill Gallagher's shows Lark Rise to Candleford and The Paradise, he is perfectly cast as Jem Merlyn. I defy anyone to make the phrase "come to market" sound sexier then he did. Also the duality of humans and their male and female aspects that Du Maurier wrote extensively about in the book was touched on with Mary crossdressing, which I thought was a nice touch. If only they had stayed true to the spirit of the text and stopped mumbling about things that didn't matter perhaps this would have been watchable. As it is you're better off turning off the volume and just pretending it's a nature documentary with lots of pretty scenery that occasionally muddy people walk through.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Charles Laughton, Cinderella, Cornwall, Daphne Du Maurier, Downton Abbey, Eliza Doolittle, Henry Higgins, Jamaica Inn, Jessica Brown Findlay, Lark Rise to Candleford, Mary Yellan, MST3K, My Fair Lady, The Paradise

Jamaica Inn by Daphne Du Maurier
Published by: Virago Press
Publication Date: 1935
Format: Paperback, 302 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Mary Yellan abides by her mother's dying wish and leaves her farm and life behind and travels north to the Cornish moors. There she expects to meet her Aunt Patience, the bubbly beauty of memory, and her new husband, Joss Merlyn. Yet before she even sets out on her journey she has doubts. Mary thought that her Aunt lived a quiet life in a small town but she is told in a curt letter from Patience that she and her husband now reside at Jamaica Inn where her husband is proprietor. There Mary finds a shell of a woman and a terrifying brute of a man in a run down inn where travellers dare not stop. It isn't long till Mary starts to learn the reasons why Jamaica Inn is given such a wide berth. The wagons in the night. The rowdy men coming in off the moors. Mary starts to dream of a way out of her situation for herself and her aunt, taking what solace she can from wandering the moors. Though soon Mary learns how easy it is for history to repeat itself when she starts to fall for her Uncle's younger brother Jem. But this wrecked life she is living can not sustain itself and something has got to give.

Jamaica Inn and Rebecca are two interesting books to read back to back. At this precise moment in time these are the only books I've read by Daphne Du Maurier so far that aren't comprised of short stories. Besides being the only books by Du Maurier that I've read both Jamaica Inn and Rebecca are re-reads for me. Books can change greatly on a re-read; you see things you missed, you might notice the pacing more, you know the ending, if you can remember it that is, and therefore can pick up on foreshadowing. Your entire experience is different to the first time. What struck me most re-reading these books was that the pacing of Jamaica Inn doesn't lend itself to a re-read as much as Rebecca does. Jamaica Inn's pacing is a headlong rush into the world of smuggling where you briefly come up for air on a rare walk with Mary Yellan over the moors but on the whole the book doesn't let up till the last page.

But knowing what that last page contains makes the rush loose it's impact. You don't have that burning desire to get to the next page and the next. It's like you start running with intent but give up fairly quickly with a stitch in your side realizing it's not really worth the effort. Whereas Rebecca is more of a slow burn. Rebecca does have the constant force pushing you forward but it's more psychological manipulation, more subtle. Rebecca invites you to dwell and absorb the atmosphere, whereas at Jamaica Inn you're just praying you get out alive. Which makes me realize all the more that while I loved Jamaica Inn the first time I read it, it truly is and always will be Rebecca that is Du Maurier's legacy.

Despite not connecting to the story the way I did initially there is so much depth that I hadn't even guessed was there during my first headlong rush through the book that the story was interesting to me in a whole new way. Du Maurier herself figures very much into the themes expressed in Jamaica Inn. All her life she felt as if she had two distinct people within her, the female and the male. While this could just be her own way of coping with her bisexuality, I find it interesting that she uses her work, her writing, which she said came from her male energy, her "boy in a box," to explore these issues which are forefront in Jamaica Inn. Mary Yellan is an a-typical girl in that she is willing to do the work of a man and cares not for trifles such as love. This a-typicality is often viewed as masculine by those around her. I don't think I can count the number of times Mary said "if only I were a man" or someone said to Mary "if only you were a man."

What this duality does in Jamaica Inn is not only address that everyone has dual natures fighting each other, but it shines a light on the mores of the time. When Du Maurier wrote this book, over a hundred years after its action takes place, society was still a very male dominated sphere. Mary is masculine because she will not abide by what society thinks she should do. She doesn't want to sit by a fire and be a lady's companion. Mary would rather run a farm on her own and be the mistress of her own fate then fall victim to the conventions of the time. Much like Du Maurier herself who set out to be a popular writer in a male dominated industry. If they had to align themselves with their male half in order to succeed, more power to them. One can only wish we could live in a world where someone could succeed just by the value of their work, but the world is always putting us in boxes, so is it any surprise Du Maurier did it to herself?

The male versus female dynamic isn't the only duality seen in the book. There is also the thin line of repulsion and attraction. Like Darcy struggling in vain with his better judgement, it's a quick turnaround from hate to love. By all reckoning, Joss Merlyn should be a repulsive, horrid man, but there's a magnetism about him, like Mary you are drawn to this brute and fascinated by him. Mary could see why her Aunt fell for him all those years ago. Which is why I think Mary falls for Jem; a purer, untainted version of Joss. Despite seeing in her Aunt what her future might hold, Mary willingly, if begrudgingly, goes off into the sunset (or in this case over the River Tamar) with Jem.

But the most important duality is seen in man versus nature. I'm not talking about man's nature, but the actual air and sky and sea. Mary comes from the south, a place where nature is tamed, but the north, ah, nature isn't tamed. The sea and the marshes are shown to fell men in the blink of an eye. Jamaica Inn on that blasted moor is the last human bastion amongst the howling winds and great tors. Cornwall itself becomes it's own character in the book. Du Maurier is able to so vividly capture the landscape and atmosphere, you can see how Cornwall needed Du Maurier to tell this story and Du Maurier needed Cornwall as her muse. There's a symbiotic relationship that feeds off each other and brings out the best in both through this stunning story of man versus nature, and here I do mean every definition of nature.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Aunt Patience, Cornwall, Daphne Du Maurier, Du Maurier December, Duality, Jamaica Inn, Jem Merlyn, Joss Merlyn, Mary Yellan, Moors, Rebecca